
aass-^i^cr7 

Book 1-i- 



^<::> 



-C 2Z 



yi' 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



To me there is no greater e.rantjtle in the history of 

the Iitiiiian raee of Diaf/nificent lettdersJiip 

and patriotism than titat of Af/raham 

Lincoln daring that contest W X-(<L 



%t*U. 



SPEECH OF 

HOiN. JOSEPH G. CANNON 






BEFORE THE 

CHAMBER OF COMMERCE 
PITTSBURG, PA. 

FEBRUARY 12, 1010 






30992—8796 



1910 



t.4-5V' 



SPEECH 



OF 



II 0^. JOSEPH G. C ANN OX 



[The following speech, delivered by Hon. Joseph G. Cannon, of 
Illinois, before the Chamber of Commerce of I'ittsburg, I'a., on Lincoln's 
Birthday, February 12, 1910, Is printed pursuant to unanimous consent.] 

Speaker CANNON said: 

Mr. ToASTMASTER, Mr. President : It is now 20 minutes 
of 11 o'cloclv. I am not going to apologize to this virile audi- 
ence, young men all; and if there are any who have had their 
threescore and ten years I can not sit them out. So, if I talk 
thirty minutes, and talk too long, signify it. [Laughter.] 

It has been said that I had the honor of a personal acquaint- 
ance with Lincoln. Yes ; and yet I can tell you but little that 
is new touching Abraham Lincoln. The survivors of the twenty- 
two hundred thousand men who in the hell of the four years' 
great contest followed him through evil and through good report 
know of his magnificent leailership. It is not necessary that I 
should say anything to them about Lincoln personTilly. 

"Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" was the ques- 
tion asked almost two thousand years ago; and they said, 
" Come and see." The Master came out of Nazareth. The 
world received Him ; the world crucified Him upon the cruel 
cross. He had His followers. That great character, with His 
philosophy and His great, kind, human, and divine heart, felt 
that tie could afford to wait, and yet how He would have gotten 
along without St. Paul, I do not know, nor can any man tell. 

St. Paul broke away from the Jews, broke away from their 
prejudices. His love for his Master made him carry the teach- 
ings of the Master not only to Jews, but to Gentiles, and in the 
most prosperous portions of the earth we have the theology, the 
philosophy, the teachings of the Master represented in our 
Christian civilization. He was of humble origin. Matthew 
traced back his ancestry to Abraham, but he was of humble 
origin, born in a manger. 

Abraham Lincoln, human, of humble but honorable parentage, 
born of forbears humble but honorable, who in Massachusetts, 
in New Jersey, in Pennsylvania, in Virginia, across the moun- 
tains to the " dark and bloody ground," contributed their mite 
amongst the other pioneers to the founding and the preservation 
of Commonwealths. In tlie humble cabin in which he was 
born no man could have prophesied without derision as to how 
he should lead the ximerican people. His father was not a 
slaveholder, and the great contest that was then ahead was a 
contest between servile and free labor — servile labor down 
south of Mason and Dixon's line — and while Lincoln's fatlier, 
Thomas, may not have fully realized why he crossed the Ohio 
30902—8796 3 



and sojourned in Indiana and took the family, Abraham amongst 
them, to Illinois; while he may not have reasoned it out, he 
acted in common with the forbears of many of us south of 
Mason and Dixon's line. Quakers, Moravians, English. Scotch, 
Irish, German, the nonslaveholders, moved out under that 
same impulse that actuated Thomas Lincoln to cross Mason and 
Dixon's line — that their children and their children's children 
might be in that part of our common heritage where labor was 
honorable and free from degradation by coming in competition 
with servile lal>or. 

LIFE ON THE FRONTIER. 

It was fortunate for all of us that Lincoln had this early 
training and humble beginning. 

The college and the university did not exist in the great 
Middle West. There was no institution of learning there at 
that time that was as good as a common high school now, of 
which multiplied thousands abound throughout the length and 
breadth of the Republic. He grew and became a clerk in a 
little country store, and sold all kinds of things, amongst others, 
with the civilization as they had it then, whisky. Douglas 
taunted him with It, and Lincoln said : 

Yes, I did : but it takes two to make a bargain. I was inside the 
counter and Douglas was outside. 

[Laughter.] 

Then he was a surveyor. He was patriotic. In the fierce 
contest that the pioneers had with the aborigines, he made 
haste as a volunteer in the Black Hawk war. 

Back again in Illinois, he had few text-books, but under very 
discouraging circumstances he acquired something of the knowl- 
edge of his chosen profession — that of the law. 

Lincoln was always a politician, always a partisan. There 
were no Carnegie libraries. Books were scarce. A copy of the 
Bible, Bunj^an's Pilgrim's Progress, Josephus, Eollins's Ancient 
History, and perhaps one copy of Shakespeare to a township 
were the books he had access to. In the law office which 
loaned him books there was a copy of The Federalist. He early 
became a follower of Alexander Hamilton. Ambitious to take 
part in politics, he became a candidate for the legislature in 
1832 in the county- of Sangamon. His opponent was Peter 
Cartwright, that virile, devoted Methodist minister, who at a 
conference in Nashville happened to meet Andrew Jackson; and 
as I heard him tell it — and it is recorded in his biography — all 
that country of the great Middle West, reaching out as far as 
the white man had trod, the ministers, in their hunting shirts 
made of homespun, gathered at Nashville. Cartwright did not 
like Bascom. 

Bascom afterwards became a bishop in the Methodist Church. 
Cartwright, in referring to him, said he was a dandy. They 
met, and being in charge of the church at Nashville, Cartwright 
was not asked to preach; and as he told the story the brethren 
rebelled, and he said: 

Bascom felt like he had to call on me, and he said : " Peter Cart- 
wright will preach at this house to-morrow moniiug at 6 o'clock." 

Said he: 

I sprang to my feet and I said : " Brethren, get up, come before 
breakfast, and we will have services in this house, and by the grace of 
Ood. aided by your presence, we will have such an outpouring of the 
spirit of God as this conference has not witnessed." 
30992—8796 



91^ 



(i'T 

MOV 



He told the story further that as the congregation s:atherecl — 
The tiiil of my huntiiiK shirt was jerked, and Bascom said to me: 
" Be Iceerful. (ieneral Jackson is coming do\\n the aisle ; " and I turned 
on him. and I said: "Who is (ieneral Jackson? If he doesn't repent 
and receive forgiveness, (iod Almighty would damn his soul as quick 
as he would that of a Guinea nigger." 

[Laushter.] 

And Bascom said : " Jackson will cut off your ears." 
But as the congregation disbursed Jackson made his way- 
down the aisle and he toolv from his iwclcet a coin that was 
equal in value to a $;") gold piece, and he said: 

I want to contribute this to the Lord's work. You are my kind of 
a man. 

[Laughter.] 

Of course, Peter Cartwright in those early days remained a 
Democrat up to the time of his death, except when the great 
struggle came between servile labor and free labor, for the first 
time he became a follower of the man whom he had defeated iu 
1832. 

LINCOLN IN POLITICS. 

Somebody has said: "Beware of the man who has but one 
book." That is a very good saying, because the man who reads 
but one book criticises it, thinks about it, gets outside of it, 
makes it his own, and is more competent than the man who 
reads a thousand books with a hop, skip, and a jump, so that 
what he reads feeds iu and feeds out, without leaving any- 
thing in him. So I,incoln, from his early law reading, knew 
something of Hamilton, and I have here his first platform, ou 
which he ran for the legislature iu 1834 and was elected. 

I am for a national bank ; I am for a high protective tariff and the 
system of internal improvements. 

These are my sentiments and political principles. 

[Applause.] 

Democracy was triumphant, and yet Inncoln was elected. 
He had many terms iu the legislature. In 1843, speaking for 
his Whig brethren in the legislature and getting ready for the 
great contest of 1844, he proposed this resolution, which was 
adopted : 

Resolved, That a tariff of duties on Imported goods producing suffi- 
cient revenue for the payment of the necessary expenses of the National 
Government and so ad.iustod as to protect American Industry Is Indis- 
pensably necessary to the prosperity of the American people. 

[Ap.plause.] 

His advocacy of a " protective tariff " was not limited by time 
or conditions. He demanded protection to American industry, 
not in the infant stage or any other stage, but as a permanent 
policy of advantage, if not of necessity, for the development and 
advancement of the United States among the nations of the 
earth. He proclaimed his belief in the doctrine of Alexander 
Hamilton at a time when it seemed that the popularity of 
Jackson had given the Democratic party a perpetual lease on the 
will of the majority. 

There was another resolution in which he voiced his opposi- 
tion and that of those who followed him at that time to the 
extension of servile labor into any Territory of the United 
States. 

30992—8796 



He practiced law on a country rircnit. He was easily the 
leader of the bar on that circuit — the old ninth circuit. David 
Davis, the nisi prius judge, was afterwards nominated by Lin- 
coln for justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. 
He was a gi'eat friend of IJncoln. P.oth of them were Whigs. 
I say he was easily the leader of the bar, but all the time he 
was talking politics. Even after I went to Illinois the only 
amusement they had was when twice a year they held the 
circuit court, which was the nisi prius court of common-law 
jurisdiction, law, and equity. Twice a year the lawyers would 
come riding in on horses. A little later on some of the county 
towns were reached by railroad, and, of course, they were 
utilized, and the jurors and the witnesses would come to the 
county seat. There were no theaters and few circuses. Van 
Ambe'rg did run a great moral menagerie once in a while 
[Laughter.] I was 20 years old before I ever saw any other 
amusement. They came together to visit. They filled up the 
houses in the little county town. Some of them camped out 
in tents, some slept in their wagons while they were in attend- 
ance upon the court. They knew the merits and the power of 
the lawyers as they addressed the court and wrestled for 
verdicts.' But at least one time in the day, sometimes at the 
hour of adjournment at noon and sometimes In the evening, 
the lawyers in attendance would address the people from 
the political standpoint. Lincoln was always ready under those 
conditions. 

I am not going to weary you by reminiscing. I am tolerably 
careful about that. It is the weakness of men past three 
score and ten to reminisce. Sometimes we begin and we say, 
"Well, now, it was the year of the big snow." [Laughter.] 
" It was the year of the shooting stars. I guess that was 1832, 
or maybe it was 1382." [Laughter.] And so it runs. There- 
fore I rarely indulge in reminiscences. I am doing more of it 
to-night than I ever expect to do again in my life. We are 
living in the present. It is well to refer to the past just enough 
to profit by its experiences, so that we plant our footsteps in 
wisdom now, and prophesy for the future. When the Master 
was bidding for recruits and one said to Him, " Lord, suffer 
me first to go out and bury my father," He turned and said to 
him, " Let the dead bury their dead." And as the life of a 
generation is less than forty years, that was very good advice. 
Therefore toll me if you grow weary of my reminiscences. 
[Laughter and applause and cries of " Go on."] 

THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 

Away back in 1820 Missouri was admitted, the southern 
boundary, 30° 30' north latitude. It was a sad day for people 
who were devoted to free labor. It was a great contest, and 
that compromise was made, and it was therein written that in 
the future, at least in spirit if not in letter, that in the States 
formed from the territory north of 36° 30' there should be free 
labor, that they should come in free; substantially the same 
stipulaticm that was made in the ordinance of 1787 as to the 
great Northwest Territory. 

The conflict was thickening and growing, slave labor upon one 
Bide and free labor upon the other, and the compromise was 
made that Missouri might come in, stretching away up to the 
30992—8796 



southern boundary of what is now Iowa, but that never there- 
after should it happen attain, and that as to territory south of 
that line, it should be left to the people. I should weary you 
if I should tell you aliout the repeal of that compromise in 1854. 
I should weary you if I told you that following that repeal the 
Sui)reme Court of the United States, by a majority vote, by an 
obiter — the question not being involved in the decision of the 
case — decided that, under the Constitution, slaves were property, 
and decided expressly that they might go into all the Territories 
and be protected under the Constitution, and decided, in prin- 
ciple, that they might go anywhere in the United States. The 
country was atiame. You, Bishop Smith, sitting here by me, 
were old enough to recollect it. Not only were the Whigs aflame, 
but the free-soil Democrats also. To describe it by the single 
expression that we sometimes use farther West, " there was 
blood on the face of the political moon." A great contest In 
Illinois resulted in the election of Trumbull for Senator. 
Lincoln was the idol of the Whigs. They had lacked .5 votes 
of enough to elect Lincoln. There were 5 free-soil Democrats 
who would not vote for liim and, under the advice of Lincoln, 
they elected Trumlnill. Lincoln cared but little for political 
preferment. He saw the great contest coming. Two years later 
the great canvass was made between Lincoln and Douglas in 
Illinois, of which canvass the whole country took note. Lincoln 
was nominated by a popular convention, and he announced his 
platform upon v\'hich to make that contest with Senator Douglas. 
I have it here. It is brief. Listen : 

A house diviclerl a.aainst itself can not stand. I beHeve this Govern- 
ment can not endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not 
expect the Union to he dissolved. I do not expect the house to fall, 
but I expect it will cease to he divided. It will heconie all one thing 
or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the fur- 
ther spread of it and place it where the public ruind shall rest in the 
belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates 
will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, 
old as well as new, North as well as South. 

In 1858 I went to Illinois from Indiana. It was not a long 
journey. About 60 miles. I settled in the new county of Doug- 
las. The prairie stretched away. In the little county town 
there were not over a dozen houses, and beyond on the prairie, 
as far as the eye could reach, there was but a single house. 
The Illinois Central Railroad had just been constructed. 

I heard two of those debates, one at Sullivan, 111., and one at 
Charleston, 111. I think I should have journeyed over the State 
to hear the others if the walking had not been poor. [Laughter.] 
It was a wonderful contest — between giants. Douglas, born in 
Vermont, a great politician, of national and world-wide reputa- 
tion, was remarkably strong and resourceful. In point of fact 
his heart beat true to human freedom, but as he was a member 
of that great party that was dominated by servile labor his am- 
bition created the desire to be President. The contest was 
fought out. Lincoln failed to reach the Senate, but the whole 
country was aflame, and at the end of those great debates he 
had a national if not a world-wide reputation, 

NOIIINATED FOR PRESIDENT. 

Then came the Cooper Union speech. Then came the cam- 
paign in Ohio in 1850, and, when 1860 came, Illinois concluded 
to present him as her candidate for the nomination for the 
30992—8796 



8 

Presidency. In the northern part of the State, especially in 
Chicago, there was much of settlement from New York ; some- 
thing from New England. They were greatly attached to 
Seward, who was a great man, a man of culture. We met in 
Decatur, 111. I was a delegate in that convention; drove there 
in a farm wagon 60 miles across the prairie. 

The coii^ution was held in a structure erected between two 
brick buiipngs, with posts cut from the forest, stringers cut 
from the^wrest, and covered with boughs cut from the forest, 
and the fRds open. The multiplied thousands gathered — eai-n- 
est, determined men. Just about the time the convention was 
organized, a voice came, " Make way for Dick Oglesby and 
John Hanks." After much of effort a narrow passage was 
made, and they passed through it, l^earing two old walnut rails. 
They were set up, and there was a legend on a strip of cotton, 
"These two rails were made by John Hanks and Abraham 
Lincoln in 18.30." There was great enthusiasm. Lincoln was 
a great lawyer; had won his spurs in the famous debate which 
attracted the attention of the whole country ; but the Ameri- 
can people, always reaching out for something that will touch 
the popular heart, found it tliere. The crowd closed up, and 
the cry came for IJncoln. He could not get through ; and 
great, "tall, gaunt man as he was, they literally piclced him up 
and passed him over their heads. He did not talk much. 
Somebody asked him, an liour before, if it was proper for him 
to be there, as he was a candidate for the Presidency ; and a 
queer expression came over his face, and he said, " The truth 
is, Arch." — it was Mr. Archibald Van Deeren to whom he was 
talking — " I am most too much of a candidate to be here, but 
hardly enough to stay away." [Laughter.] 

The audience were wild with enthusiasm. He talked a little, 
not to exceed five minutes. Someliody sang out, " Abe, did you 
make those rails?" his reply came "John Hanks says we made 
those rails. I do not know whether we did or not, but I have 
made many better ones than those." [Laughter.] 

The Seward people in that convention were swept off their 
feet, and a delegation unanimously chosen by that convention, 
consisting of the personal and political friends of Abraham 
Lincoln, went to the convention held in the wigwam a week or 
two later at Chicago. You all know the result. 

Then came the campaign. Lincoln behaved very well. He 
did not make speeches. He did not make a campaign. He 
answered a few letters. If you want to laiow what was the 
plattorm adopted at Chicago, read the last Republican plat- 
form; and you have everything in that platform that was in 
the platform adopted in 1S60, touching economic questions, and 
which platform the pen of Abraham Lincoln drew. [Applause.] 

The campaign that followed was a fierce one. "Black lie- 
pulilican." "i)o you want your datighter to marry a nigger?" 
"Abolitionist." All that kind of thing. 

Lincoln was not an abolitionist, he was a lawyer. Up to that 
time and after he became President he was not a follower of 
Garrison. Tliey would have swept slavery with a strong hand, 
by revolution or otherwise. Some of them would have been 
willing to see two governments, in order tliat we might be rid 
of slavery. Lincoln voiced his platform and his true feelings 
30992 — 8796 



9 

when he said that he would not, as man, citizen, or lawyer, 
interfere with slavery wliere it then existed ; but that if it was 
contined to its then limits, in the fullness of time it would dis- 
apiiear. You may say that was the politician's view. It was 
good politics for votes, and as the world was not made in a day, 
and as in a government of the people you can not make prog- 
ress except as you keep the majority of the people with you, 
it was good all around. m^ 

Elected President, the threat of secession came.]HIe re- 
mained at Springfield, and after the campaign I saw nffi once, 
when he was on his way, in a day coach, without a companion, 
to go to Charleston, 111., to meet, for the last time in his life, 
the old*tep-mother, who called him "my boy Abe" up to the 
time of his death, and she lived longer than Lincoln lived. She 
was an illiterate, plain, homespun woman, but good stuff. She 
had been kind to Lincoln, and gloried in his success. She died 
calling him " my boy Abe." 

LINCOLN'S FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

The contest came. You recollect his first message, the inau- 
gural. Let me read a little. If I am talking too long, stop 
me. [Cries of " Go on ! "] In his firSt inaugural address, he 
said : 

riainly the central idea of secession is the essence of an.irchy. A 
majority' held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations — 

He spoke of constitutional checks and limitations. There was 
nowhere in that inaugural, or in any state paper, or in any 
statement, or in the mind of Lincoln, that the Chief Executive 
could do anything except that which was authorized in a gov- 
ernment of the peo^ile by law [applause] ; and it remains for 
wild-eyed sons of destiny of a later day to saj^ that the Execu- 
tive can do anything that is not expressly prohibited by the 
letter of the law. But I will read the rest of it : 

A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, 
and all this chansjing easily with deliberate changes of public opinion 
and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free jieople. Whoever 
rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity 
is impossilile. The rule of a minority as a permanent arrangement is 
wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy 
or despotism in some form is all that is left. 

The Soiith seceded. . ^Ye went to the limit to prevent seces- 
sion. Just before Lincoln was inaugurated a constitutional 
amendment, called the "thirteenth amendment" to the Consti- 
tution, was passed in the House, which was Republican, and in 
the Senate, which was also Republican, because many of the 
Senators and Representatives from the Southland had already 
journeyed out of Congress. They submitted that thirteenth 
amendment, which provided that in the future the Constitution 
should never be amended so as to interfere with slavery where 
it then existed. Lincoln, after liis inauguration, sent that 
amendment to the States. Referring to it in his inaugural 
message, he said in substance that as the express terms of the 
amendment were, in his judgment, implied in the Constitution 
as it was, he did not see any objection to making the express 
amendment. He went to the limit. He was urged by the radi- 
cals in the far North, away from the border land, to make all the 
concessions possible to prevent secession, and he did. He said 
30902—8796 



10 

to Greeley, in that famous letter of his, " I will preserve the 
Union; with slavery as it exists now if I must; without 
slavery if I can, but I will preserve the Union." [Applause.] 

LINCOLN THE LEADER OF THE PEOPLE. 

Men in this world must be practical. Civilizations must be 
practical. Majorities must be practical. Lincoln knew that 
the radical element in the Northland was away from Mason 
and Dixon's line. He knew that the radical element in the 
Southland was in the Gulf States. The theater of that great 
contest was to be in the border land and of the border land. 
Born in Kentucky, living in Illinois, the southern and central 
parts of Illinois and Indiana having been principally settled 
from Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia, whose 
people had gone there to get away from slavery, the hearth- 
stone was back in the old home, the kin were there, and they 
had something of the prejudices against servile labor that 
necessarily would linger with them. 

They were willing to follow Lincoln in his contest for free- 
dom in the Territories; but when the cry of "Abolitionist" was 
raised many of them wavered. I do not know, I do not affirm 
or dispute, that God raised up Abraham Lincoln to lead the 
people of this country to the preservation of the Union. Some- 
times I think under the first law that He imposed upon the 
race after the fall we have been operating without special 
Providences since. I do not affirm or deny it, but I do know 
that xibraham Lincoln was a leader in that great contest, and 
knew how far he could go and how fast he coulil go and keep 
in supporting distance of the people who lived in Kentucky, and 
Missouri, and Virginia, and the southern parts of the States of 
Indiana, and Illinois, and Ohio, and Pennsylvania, and Mary- 
land, upon the border land. All he had to do was to place his 
hand upon his pulse and count his heart beats, and when he 
got the answer he knew that he had the answer of a majority 
of that people whom he was leading upon the theater of that 
great contest. [Applause.] 

" On to llichmond ! " was the cry. You older people recollect 
it. Greeley in his Tribune, and the metropolitan press gen- 
erally, took command of the army. " On to Richmond ! We will 
bring this great contest at once to a close." The battle of Bull 
Run came, and with it came defeat, and, lo, how the tune 
changed. 

I have great respect for the press. It reaches the people 
once or twice daily. I have great respect for the periodicals 
called " magazines." They reach the people weekly or semi- 
monthly or monthly ; but as I recollect the past, I may be par- 
doned when they cry, " Do this or that or the other," if I in- 
quire first, at least in my own mind, whether my judgment and 
your judgment is content to follow the orders that are given. 
[Applause.] Because no sooner had Bull Run come than Hor- 
ace Greeley, whose pen I use4i to think was touched with in- 
spiration — I read Greeley's Tribune out on the Wabash once a 
week from boyhood up to that time — wrote his letter to Lin- 
coln and said, "Make peace upon the best terms you can get." 
And then the New York Times proposed that the President 
should be superseded, and the Chicago Times, and quite gener- 
ally the metropolitan press, proposed to throw up the sponge. 
30992—8796 



11 

We think now that the sensational press is pretty ba<1, but I 
think yi)U wicked peojjle will nnderstand when I say to you, 
from my recollections of the press then, that the press of that 
day could give cards and spades to the sensational press of 
to-day and beat them at the game. [Applause and laughter.] 
So the war waged on. Cartoons! Oh, we have vicious car- 
toons. [Laughter.] That great cartoonist, Davenport, cov- 
ered Mark Hanna with dollar marks for the gold that was [laid 
him by Hearst. I never quarreled with Davenport. He must 
live. He repented in sackcloth and ashes; and now that Mark 
Hanna has crossed over, there is no man of any party through- 
out the Republic who would accuse him of a dishonorable act 
in private or public life. [Applause.] If you will go back 
and look at the cartoons of Lincoln's day you will -wonder 
whether art is not brutalizing instead of ennobling. 

MORTON AND YATES. 

Then came the contest of 18G2. No two men ever worshipped 
the same god, or ever will. Our idea of Deity does not change 
Deity. He is to each individual according to the conception 
of the individual. There was conflict amongst our brethren. 
The church South prayed for slavery and sustained secession. 
The church North in part sustained Lincoln, in part criticised 
him and denounced him. I am not speaking disrespectfully of 
the church. The Christian church is a great power for the up- 
building of civilization. It does not make any difference 
whether you or I have faith or not, the average man is a re- 
ligious animal, and he will have some kind of religion ; and 
there is no religion that ever existed in the tide of time that 
equals the Christian religion. [Applause.] People who believe 
in it, howes^er they may disbelieve in minor matters, come near 
enough to believing so that they cooperate; but the churches 
grew quite uneasy about Lincoln. They sent delegations down 
to Washington. There were some of them who went from 
Chicago, and with great concern instructed him, " Thus saith 
the Lord." You recollect Liucoln's answer. He said: 

Thcn-e is no human being living wlio is more anxious to know what 
the Lord would have me do than I am. I am clotlied with responsi- 
bility, and it seems to me if He Is willing to accord His command to 
anyone, that He would give it to me. 

That was a few days before the notice of the emancipation 
pro lamation, which was given in September, 1S02. That proc- 
lamation had been written for thi-ee months, and Lincoln, with 
his great desire to save the Republic, with his great knowledge, 
with his great courage, was waiting, waiting, waiting, until 
the boys in blue might gain a victory or two; waiting until 
their letters should come from the southland, where they were 
fighting the battles of the Republic, to their brothers and par- 
ents and friends, that they might also make converts; waiting 
for the people to rise up and sing against the opposition of the 
sensational press and the cowardly would-be leaders; waitmg 
for them to sing, " We're coming. Father Abraham, three hun- 
dred thousand more." [Applause.] 

"\^'ithin a week after the Chicago ministers returned to Chi- 
cago Lincoln issued that proclamation, and gave notice that if 
the forces in rebellion did not lay down their arms by the 1st 
of January, under the war power of the Government, under the 
30992—8796 



12 

maxim tlint in timo of war all laws are silent, lie would pro- 
claim freedom to the slaves. Then there were bard times in 
Illinois and Indiana. Those two States had great, stalwart, 
Iiatriotic governors. Measuring my words, if there had not been 
a Lincoln. I believe Oliver P. Morton would have been more 
nearly like Lincoln than any other man who lived at that time. 
The Indiana elections came. Copperhead legislatures were 
chosen in both States, and by legislation and refusal to legislate 
they did all they could to weaken the federal arms. They with- 
held approi)riations in Indiana ; and from that time until an- 
other legislature was elected in lS(i4. Oliver P. Morton could 
only carry on the state government in Indiana, could only en- 
list and clothe and forward to the front the patriotic sous of 
that great State by pledging his personal credit with that of 
Newman and others, through Wlnslow, Lanier & Co., of New 
York, to obtain the money necessary to carry on the state gov- 
ernment. 

In the constitution of Illinois there is power, when the senate 
and house disagree about the day for adjournment, that the 
governor may prorogue the legislature. I do not know whether 
there was such a disagreement as the constitution of the State 
of Illinois contemplated or not, but here was a legislature doing 
all it could by its counsel to promote desertions and, by refusing 
necessary legislation, to embarrass the cause of the Union. The 
house passed a resolution fixing a day for adjournment. The 
senate disagreed and sent it back to the house. Governor Yates 
said that that authorized him to prorogue the legislature, and 
he did it on the doulde-quick. [Laughter.] The governor set 
sentinels at the doors of the statehouse, and the legislature 
met in a church. Camp Yates was 3 miles away, and he sent 
an orderly with a message to that rump legislature, as he called 
it, that if tliey did not disperse he would disi)erse them at the 
point of the bayonet, and they got! [Laughter.] 

And all the while, with all the abuse, with the quarrels in 
the Cabinet, witli tlie premier suggesting that the conduct of 
the war had better be left to him ; with the failures of generals; 
with the universal criticism of generals, of colonels, and even of 
captains: with the false reports that were sent by wire and 
corresjiondence; with doubt and fear; with the credit of the 
Republic disappearing, this tall, gaunt, sad-faced man, born of 
the children of toil, kept his courage. To me there is no greater 
example in the history of the human race of magnificent leader- 
ship and patriotism than that of Abraham Lincoln during that 
contest. 

George William Curtis in notifying Lincoln of his second nom- 
ination said : 

Amid the bitter taunts of eager friends and the fierce denunciation 
of enemies, now moving too fast for some, now too slow for others, 
they have seen you throughout this tremendous contest patient, sa- 
gacious, faith.ful. iust, leaning upon the heart of the great mass of the 
people and satisfied to be moved by its mighty pulsations. 

In that one sentence Mr. Curtis expressed the great qualities 
of Lincoln and the secret of his success as a leader of the 
American people. 

Piloses was a great character. He led his people over the 
des(>rt for forty years to the promised land ; but, in my judgment, 
speaking respectfully, I believe that Abraham Lincoln was the 
30992—8790 



13 

greatest lender that this world ever produced, and in that great 
strugiTle for a government of the people, and for free men and 
freedom, he laid a foundation upon which I trust and believe 
the Iiepublic will endure through the ages. [Applause.] 

THREE PRESIDENTS ASSASSINATED. 

Lincoln was assassinated. That wild egotist, Booth, assassin- 
ated him. Later on Garfield was assassinated, and later on Mc- 
Kinley. All were assassinated by egotists; in my judgment all 
those assassins were unbalanced. I do not nienti(m the names 
of papers or men. I have searched and searched in vain for 
any great conspiiacy that led to the assassination of those three 
Presidents. My deliberate opinion is that a sensational press 
that was making an advertisement for the sale of its wares in- 
spired those unbalanced egotists to assassination. [Applause.] 

Do not let anybody say I am abusing the press. I am not. 
I am condemning the abuse of the press. If I had supreme 
power I would not suppress it, because in the day of the tele- 
graph and the telephone, in our exceedingly busy life and civi- 
lization, headlines are about all that many of us can read. If 
we read the dispatches, frequently we find that the headlines 
are a lie if the dispatches are true. [Laughter.] Well, are 
they to desti;oy the Republic? Nay, nay. Uncomfortable, yes; 
but a free people, competent for self-government in the ful- 
ness of time, when they see a sheet of paper that yesterday 
was blank and that last night ran through a press and now is 
covered with ink, will learn to think twice and inquire whether 
or no what is said on that sheet of paper is true. [Applause.] 

In conclusion, my fellow-citizens, I want to say two things. 
In a government of the people, as contradistinguished from an 
absolute monarchy or a limited monarchy, government can only 
be had by and through a majority. Why, the churches under- 
stand that if they did not organize they would not be worth a 
song sung in a hurricane. [Laughter.] They have their or- 
ganization. Take your Masonic lodges, j'our benevolent socie- 
ties, your business organizations, your school districts, your 
townships, your counties, j-our States, bj^ whom are they gov- 
erned? The wild-eyed son of destiny who does not agree with 
anybody turns out and says, " God and one are a majority," 
forgetting that God is a majority without him. [Laughter and 
api»lause.] 

I'erfection Is not to be found anywhere, except with Deity ; 
but you must have organization. And in our Government or- 
ganization is had through parties. Sometimes parties make 
mistakes. Sometimes you have graft. Some individual gets 
in and steals something. That is very bad. That happens 
sometimes in school districts, municipalities, townships, coun- 
ties, States, and in the Federal Government. That is very, 
very bad : but so long as in the fullness of time the people, be- 
coming informed, choose officials who are actuated by sound 
and just public sentiments, who are not guilty of graft, who 
will see to it that the laws are enforced, so long as that hap- 
pens we need have no fear of the perpetuity of the Republic. 
[Applause.] One swallow does not make a summer. 

GREATEST MONUMENT TO LINCOLN. 

One of the greatest achievements of Lincoln was that, through 
his partisanship, being a practical man, he led in the formation 
30992—8796 



u 

of the Hepiiblican party, that party which has been longer in 
power than any other in the history of the Repnblic. Its poli- 
cies, which were Lincoln's policies, have dominated the Re- 
pnblic, save in one instance, where the opposition party came 
into complete control of the executive and both branches of 
the legislative departments, and after fonr years of that, the 
erring prodigal children of the Republic came back to the old 
home with joy. [Laughter and applause.] 

For more than a generation poets, orators, historians, artists, 
and architects have been trying to build enduring monmnents 
to Lincoln, as men of less ability and pretension have been grop- 
ing after means for expressing their appreciation in that way 
which touches all levels of humanity, a treasured memory of 
a plain man wlio was equal in wisdom, courage, and humanity 
to meet all the responsibilities placed upon him by his fellow- 
men ; but to me the most fitting monument to Lincoln is the 
party he helped organize, and the achievements of the policies 
he helped develop for the lasting benefit of the whole country, 
East and West, North and South, white and black. 

The party of Lincoln has had longer life, longer control of 
the Government than any other party, and under its adminis- 
tration has been written the most marvelous history of human 
achievements ever recorded by any people in any time since the 
beginning. 

Lincoln was one of the fovmders of the Republican party, 
its first great leader, and the principles embodied in the first 
platform are still the principles of the party. 

Lincoln will always be known as the first and foremost Re- 
publican, as he will ever be known as second to no other Amer- 
ican. He was a party man, battling for principles which his 
party represented, which he believed of vital interest to the 
American people. 

The Territories which Lincoln sought to save from slavery 
have surpassed the wildest speculation and prophecy in 18G0, 
and the homestead act, passed in Lincoln's administration on 
his recommendation, has converted the Staked Plains and the 
Great American Desert into an agricultural empire that has not 
a parallel anywhere, with the most independent, the most pros- 
perous, and the richest people per capita to be found on this 
continent. That newer West has to-day double the total wealth 
of the United States at the time Lincoln was elected, and one- 
third the whole wealth of the country to-day, which is one-third 
the wealth of the whole civilized world. 

But, even more than this, the policies of Lincoln have bi'ought 
a new life to the South that rebelled against the Union. In the 
last decade that section has had the most remarkable develop- 
ment that has been recorded by the Census Office — greater than 
New England, greater than the Middle Atlantic or the Middle 
States, and even greater than the West, which was the special 
care of Lincoln — until in its prosperity the South is almost 
ready to admit that " the stone rejected by the builders shall 
become the chief corner stone of the temple." They have found 
pi'osperity and happiness in Lincoln's policies. The scars of 
war have disappeai-ed. Furnaces and factories have sprung into 
existence as if by magic. 
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15 

There are few men in the South to-day who will not admit 
that Lincoln's policies saved the South from its own eri'ors and 
started that section of the country on the real road to jn-os- 
perity. These men would not go back to the servile labor for 
which they rebelled ajiainst the authority of the majority and 
fought against it for four long years. 

They have seen the light, and this achievement of a united 
country, with the same interests, making it a homogeneous 
country, as it never was before, justify my assertion that the 
Republican party and what has been wrought under its policies 
in this half century make the most fitting monument to Lincoln, 
under whose leadership the slave was made free, and what is 
of far greater importance, the white man was set free. 

THE FUTUEB OF CUE GOVERNMENT. 

I have no fears about the perpetuity of our respective state 
governments and of the National Government. We have to be 
vigilant. The people must be intelligent. JNIen of force must 
take part in government, because they are sovereign. But how 
magnificently we are meeting the conditions. This day in the 
great Republic there are 16,000,000 children in the common 
schools, and for the education of the oncoming sovereign who 
is to control the destinies of the Republic we are spending half 
of all the money that is spent for education in the whole civil- 
ized world. Expensive, do you say? Yes. This is not a cheap 
Government. [Laughter.] As long as a government of the 
people remains, it never will be a cheap Government, because 
as the old feed out and the new feed in they must needs be not 
only patriotic but intelligent. 

Men of the Chamber of Commerce of Pittsburg, I look into 
your faces, intelligent, virile, leaders in production, men who 
own and represent capital, which is necessary for production. 
I do not know your genesis, personally ; but I will guess that 
in nine cases out of ten, on an average, less than a half a 
century ago you were the bright-faced school boys in the com- 
mon schools, building your castles in Spain. You will never 
live in them, but the effort to live in them makes civilization. 
You can not produce by your capital alone. Money will not 
work by itself. Money expended, striking hands with labor, 
becomes production. Edward Atkinson has said that if all 
ift'oduction should cease, and you could convert all the wealth 
of the world into subsistence, in three years it would all be 
gone. Fifty years from now, when this chamber of commerce 
holds a meeting to celebrate the birthday anniversary of Abra- 
ham Lincoln, and perchance the Speaker of the National House 
of Representatives, and the eminent commoner from Massa- 
chusetts, and the magnificent governor of the great Keystone 
State comes to assist you, do you want to know who will be 
the Speaker and the commoner and the governor, and the members 
of your Chamber of Commerce, who will assemble in this or some 
similar room? Go to the public schools and find the children of 
the sons of toil who under God's fiat are living in the sweat of 
their faces, and there behold your successors. [Applause.] 
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